A new friend and long time activist in San Francisco sent a document to me last week. It is the “Preamble to the National Black Political Agenda,” from the
National Black Political Assembly held on March 10, 1972. Some 8,000 Black Americans gathered in Gary, Ind. that day to attend what is known as the “Gary
Convention.”
I vaguely remember the Convention in 1972. I was still a member of Operation Breadbasket, and I was finishing my last months in high school and looking
forward to leaving home for college that fall. But it was still a time of awakening for many Black Americans, particularly those of us who were young.  We would
have already understood the message of the Gary Convention that Blacks had to accept “major responsibility for creating both the atmosphere and the program
for fundamental, far-reaching change in America.” We would have understood, too, that such responsibility was and still is ours because “it is our people who are
most deeply hurt and ravaged by the present systems of society.”
I know many Black Americans who are working in grassroots organizations and who have not forgotten their responsibility to the “deeply hurt and ravaged” and
need to create an alternative atmosphere were fear is rejected. But we are not there yet. Katrina revealed that in the last 40 years, many have turned their backs
on the idea of creating an atmosphere of equality. Worse, Black leadership has capitulated to the atmosphere of fear rather than one of awakening.  
News is that presidential candidate Barack Obama, according to Jessica Lee at Indypendent, will support the Violent Radicalization Homegrown Terrorism
Prevention Act (S. 1959). “The House version of the bill, H.R. 1955, passed Oct. 23 by a vote of 404-6 under the ‘suppression of the rules,’ a provision that is
available to quickly pass bills considered ‘non-controversial,’” Lee explains (“Obama Supports Homegrown Terrorism Bill”). In articles for the Black Commentator
(November) and the City Capital Hues (December), I have discussed the dangers of this Homegrown Terrorism Bill and the Gang Abatement and Prevention bill
(the latter passed the Senate in Oct. 2007). I suppose Obama sees no danger to the Black and Latino/a communities with the passing of this Homeland Terrorism
bill.  
The U.S. Human Rights Network, a coalition of over 250 social justice and human rights groups, released its report on Dec. 10, 2007, in which it charges the
Bush Administration “with failing to comply with obligations under the International Convention on the Elimination of all forms of Racial Discrimination.” While
the report points to “the chronic persistence of structural racism” and the “disparate racial impact on people of color of Hurricane Katrina,” it still ignored, for
example, “the issue of police brutality, recognized by many Americans as one of the most blatant and common forms of ongoing differential treatment based on
race.” It also failed to discuss the effects of “education” for Blacks in America that drives “children of color out of schools and into the prison system.” The report
does discuss the “stark racial disparities in incarceration rates for Black and Latino Americans.
I guess Obama missed this report too. Now the team of Obama and Oprah is quite busy chasing funding for Obama’s presidential campaign rather than
discussing issues that would associate Obama with the Black community. “The society we seek cannot come unless Black people organize to advance its
coming,” (emphasis in original—“Preamble”). But we see now that fear controls Obama’s campaign, and it seems fear is the impetus for his support of the
Homegrown Terrorism bill.  
This is the tragic outcome of the domestic narrative nightmare: Black, Latino/a, Native American equality.  Obama, for many White Americans, “transcends
race.” Transcending race means ignoring the reality of inequality and the reality that things are getting worse rather than better. Obama talks of a vision beyond
the nightmare of inequality: Everything seems alright now and will be even better in the future! But the truth of Obama’s vision reveals this: A fear that
overwhelms his vision of America and compels him to support an expanded (domestic and foreign) narrative of nightmare, the Homegrown Terrorism bill.  
Too bad Obama cannot take up the work of many Black, Latino/a, and Native American grassroots organizations throughout this country and call for change in
the reality of racial disparities. This would represent an awakening, something for “far-reaching change” so many Blacks, Latino/as, and Native Americans
envision for America.  But the lesson here is that this change is with citizens rather than politicians and their celebrity supporters. We are the catalysts for our
awakening and not the politicians, Republicans or Democrats.  We face a new year and new possibilities for the change that will bring about equality for people
of color in America.


HOMEPAGE
December 21, 2007 Archives
Voices/Dr Jean Daniels

New possibilities for positive change in America
                    New Year may bring